[OLR] Exercise 8.4: Aggregation, syndication and the social engine

a) RSS is an XML application needed for aggregation and syndication, often called a Web 'feed'. What is RSS and explain what aggregation and syndication are and how they have changed the nature of the Web. How do you subscribe to an RSS feed? Try some of these RSS enabled sites such as itunes.com and the notions of "swarm" and "stack" at digg.com

RSS is generally accepted as meaning 'Really Simple Syndication' or 'Rich Site Summary'. In a nutshell it is:

Just a web feed format, or a means of transporting data across the web. It's often specified in XML (extensible markup language), which is simply the way the data inside a feed is structured. Says Molander, "Think of RSS as an Internet plumbing system and XML as a standard way to transmit and receive data through those pipes ... If you get news updates through an information portal like Yahoo, Google, or BlogLines, those updates are powered by RSS behind the scenes." Malta, Chris & Cowie, Robin RSS in a Nutshell - What It Is and What It Does. Accessed here.

b) del.icio.us is a social bookmarking website. What does this mean and what are the advantages for workgroups? Discuss how del.icio.us uses the term 'tag' in a different context to what Web publishers would be familiar.

Social bookmarking is a method for Internet users to share, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web resources. Unlike file sharing, the resources themselves aren't shared, merely bookmarks that reference them. Accessed from Wikipedia.

Social bookmarking is an advantage for workgroups because it allows for descriptions to be added to these bookmarks in the form of metadara, so that other users may understand the content of the resource without first needing to download it for themselves. Such descriptions may be free text comments, votes in favor of or against its quality, or tags that collectively or collaboratively become a folksonomy. Folksonomy's are also called social tagging, "the process by which many users add metadata in the form of keywords to shared content". Accessed from Wikipedia .

Tags as used by sites such as del.ico.us are informal and not agreed upon as such. However tags as used on these sites do tend to, through sheer use by many people, agregate around a common vocabulary. Accessed from Wikipedia. In this sense these tags differ from those used in the context of web publishers et al in the sense that those tags would be clearly defined and standardised.

c) How do you see services such as those provided at the GoToWeb20.net site as changing the way that YOU and your future workgroups operate?

Well I'm not sure that this site would change the way that I and my future workgroups would operate beyond this site making me aware of JUST HOW MANY Web 2.0 services are available. It might make me cling more tightly to Google: My thinking being I've never heard of any of these sites - how can they possibly prosper and do well? In other words how safe (in terms of me accessing it next year or during a major project) will my data be down the track. I still remember a free webmail service that I loved: zenmail.net. They folded right after I paid for upgraded services. :) If anything a site like this makes you realise how the Internet is really composed of a few giant everyday names that are in the Zeitgeist of everyday people - and everyone / everything else.

d) Explain how the Elgg social engine works on a Web site where it is installed? Is this the type of application you want on your Web server in the workplace?

Elgg is an open source social engine that provides the building blocks for incorporating Web 2.0, tools such as forums, blogs, media sharing, social grouping / tagging / bookmarking tools, a wiki and other collaborative toolsets to enrich a site and help take it from from being static (serving up documents) to active - where users create the content, add the value.

This is the type of application that I would want on my server if it were up to me. This is because it is open source and therefore it can be understood, diagnosed and extended by my organisation and it won't, link an closed source or proprietary application be dependent on the whims of its providing company. In effect Elgg is a community based tool (Drupal also comes to mind) that provides, in Drupal's words "The community plumbing": The stuff behind the scenes, under the covers, which provides all of the essential services that I take for granted - all without me having to go off and hire a developer and literally reinvent the wheel.